Pains and gains are shared closely among alliance stakeholders, putting high demands on their organisational skills. Here are some ideas, suggestions and systemic solutions that would work to their favour.
Why can Organisational Design make or brake a business?
Collaborative work is influenced with multiplicity of interests. Besides stakeholders’ liability for their (or their investors’) cash, the strongest motivator in any business process is self-interest of involved individuals. Self-interest can be a true driving force behind success, assuming it would be given enough space for self-realisation. The problem is that if engaged in business together, all the individuals, whose self-interests naturally differ, could create more conflicts than benefits. Therefore some rights & rules conducting their behaviour need to be in place. Fundamentally, the rights & rules of engagement should be aligned with the representation of required expertise, competencies, capacities, and (sometimes most importantly) with people’s individual characters.
Many would agree that Organisational Design can make or break a business process. Therefore it should be of ultimate desire to process stakeholders to consider certain ways and possibilities of aligning the multiplicity of individuals in order to harness their self-interests on the way of achieving collateral benefits.
Aligning at least the most important rights & rules, traditional business organisations and partnerships use legal agreements with respects to stakeholders’ interests, cultures, systems and, at last but not least, levels of paranoia. Besides being elaborate, lengthy and expensive, legal agreements are also relatively difficult to adjust when circumstances change and require modifications.
Another approach to the issue is to set up specific project alliances where all pains and gains are shared equitably among owner- and non-owner-participants. This type of arrangement is covered by essentially one collective agreement with applicable penalties only in the case of wilful damage. The method highly relies upon honesty, trust and solid genuine relationships within and between collaborating teams. But then, what if we cannot fully trust in business?
Perhaps the solution is not (only) contractual. The rights & rules, which would reflect complicated Organisational Design, could be provided (and reinforced) by a system. Imagine an environment where participation of multiple individuals and entities can be easily structured in a way that reflects rights & rules of their engagements with regards to their self-interests as well as collateral benefits.
To begin with, we need to define at least 3 frames of reference which are essential to any Organisational Design:
1. Me:
It is a representation of an individual as a unit of competency and activity, the most important driving force behind a business process.
2. Project:
It is a scope of activity with a purpose and a predefined goal which is set by one or multiple individuals associated to one or multiple organisations.
3. Organisation:
It is a group of individuals driven by a functional hierarchy with the primary purpose of generating profit by engaging competencies (individuals) within projects.
Me, Organisation and Projects: The most universal frames of reference. They represent the individual, work and organisational aspects in any business.
In the traditional business environment, the frames of reference have been applied in a rigid order: An organisation sets the rules of engagement for individuals who work in projects to achieve the organisation’s goals which are subject to the organisation’s interests.
However, in the more contemporary business environment where large monolithic organisations are no more able to control their products’ life cycles, where work processes are determined by the need to share and cooperate, and success is driven by the customer’s experience rather than shareholder’s interest, Organisational Design is defined by the increasing requests for controllable flexibility.
Let us assume that a flexible but precise proportion between Me, Project and Organisation would be the key to the alignment of individual, work and corporate interests. Then we should set here certain initial organisational parameters and their combinations, applicable to the majority of cases during planning and execution of a business process:
- One organisation can operate in multiple projects at once.
- One project can branch to other projects as a result of phasing and segmenting a work process. Among linked projects can be applied various hierarchies. In that sense, Abillance.com offers multiple systemic tools for accommodating nearly any management practices.
- It is not possible to subordinate Organisation to Project as it would mean that the people engaged in a project could modify procedures and setups in an organisation. Organisation as a corporate structure is logically superior to work structure of a project. Therefore this situation cannot be permitted.
- Two and more Organisations can share and supervise one Project. This is an archetype of project alliancing. Abillance.com provides a variety of tools empowering such arrangements.
